From The South Bruce
Hamilton, Hickman, Thorneycroft, And Haig Swept Upwards, Stripping
The Country As They Went In The Same Way That French Had Done In
The Eastern Transvaal, While Pilcher's Column Waited To The North
Of The Barbed-Wire Barrier.
It was known that Fourie, with a
considerable commando, was lurking in this district, but he and his
men slipped at night between the British columns and escaped.
Pilcher, Bethune, and Byng were able, however, to send in 200
prisoners and very great numbers of cattle.
On April 10th Monro,
with Bethune's Mounted Infantry, captured eighty fighting Boers
near Dewetsdorp, and sixty more were taken by a night attack at
Boschberg. There is no striking victory to record in these
operations, but they were an important part of that process of
attrition which was wearing the Boers out and helping to bring the
war to an end. Terrible it is to see that barren countryside, and
to think of the depths of misery to which the once flourishing and
happy Orange Free State had fallen, through joining in a quarrel
with a nation which bore it nothing but sincere friendship and
goodwill. With nothing to gain and everything to lose, the part
played by the Orange Free State in this South African drama is one
of the most inconceivable things in history. Never has a nation so
deliberately and so causelessly committed suicide.
CHAPTER 33.
THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901.
Three consecutive chapters have now given some account of the
campaign of De Wet, of the operations in the Transvaal up to the
end of the year 1900, and of the invasion of Cape Colony up to
April 1901. The present chapter will deal with the events in the
Transvaal from the beginning of the new century. The military
operations in that country, though extending over a very large
area, may be roughly divided into two categories: the attacks by
the Boers upon British posts, and the aggressive sweeping movements
of British columns. Under the first heading come the attacks on
Belfast, on Zuurfontein, on Kaalfontein, on Zeerust, on
Modderfontein, and on Lichtenburg, besides many minor affairs. The
latter comprises the operations of Babington and of Cunningham to
the west and south-west of Pretoria, those of Methuen still further
to the south-west, and the large movement of French in the
south-east. In no direction did the British forces in the field
meet with much active resistance. So long as they moved the gnats
did not settle; it was only when quiet that they buzzed about and
occasionally stung.
The early days of January 1901 were not fortunate for the British
arms, as the check in which Kitchener's Bodyguard was so roughly
handled, near Lindley, was closely followed by a brisk action at
Naauwpoort or Zandfontein, near the Magaliesberg, in which De la
Rey left his mark upon the Imperial Light Horse. The Boer
commandos, having been driven into the mountains by French and
Clements in the latter part of December, were still on the look-out
to strike a blow at any British force which might expose itself.
Several mounted columns had been formed to scour the country, one
under Kekewich, one under Gordon, and one under Babington.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 346 of 435
Words from 178890 to 179434
of 225456
